Six sports, including swimming and tennis, have been warned they will have millions in grassroots funding taken away unless they can show they can improve participation figures in the next 12 months, as Sport England unveiled its investment priorities for the next four years.

The grassroots investment body has revealed how £493.4m in lottery and exchequer funding will be divided up between 46 sports over the next four years as it attempts to drive government promises to buck the trend of previous Games and use the 2012 Olympics to increase the numbers playing sport.

Among the biggest winners were those sports that have already shown they can deliver. Cycling will receive a total of £32m over the next four years, up £7.3m on the previous four-year cycle, and netball will receive £25.4m, up from £18.7m. Smaller sports also benefited, with triathlon's investment up from £4.5m to £7.7m. "If you have put in a good plan and succeeded in driving participation, there is more money. We have always said we'd back winners, which we've done," said Sport England's chief executive, Jennie Price.

But the Amateur Swimming Association and the Lawn Tennis Association were among six governing bodies effectively put on probation. The money devoted to developing talent at the top of their sports is protected, but grassroots funding is only guaranteed for one year.

Price said the ASA had endured a "tough time" and its new plan was unproven, while the LTA's "simply wasn't good enough". While it has delivered on the "talent" part of its remit, developing promising junior players at the elite end of the sport, it has failed to grow the grassroots. "Its thinking has been some distance behind other governing bodies. We hope they're starting to turn the corner now. They are right at the beginning of this journey. We need to give them a year to step up their game and prove they can deliver it," she said.

Unless they show significant progress in the next 12 months the £10.5m reserved annually for swimming in years two, three and four, and the £7.1m a year earmarked for tennis, will be diverted to other projects. In the case of tennis, that would mean a substantial loss of power and face for the LTA and a boost for critics who have long argued that the public money could be better invested in other projects.

Since 2008 both sports have seen the numbers participating once a week go down, from 3.244 million to 2.933 million in the case of swimming and from 487,500 to 445,100 in tennis. The other sports put on a year's probation are squash, table tennis, fencing and basketball.

According to the funding awards, the investment in all sports can be cut by 20% at the end of each year if governing bodies fail to hit their targets. Under the government's new strategy, around two-thirds of the so-called "Whole Sport Plan" money must be focused on increasing participation among 14- to 25-year-olds. Recent figures showed that while participation figures were going up for the population as a whole, numbers among young people remained static.

Rugby union and cricket have both seen significant reductions in funding but Price said that both had been agreed with the sports for specific reasons and were not punishments for underperformance. Cricket will get £20m over four years, plus £7.5m to the Cricket Foundation for its Chance to Shine programme.

That represents a reduction of £7.7m on the previous four-year cycle, but Price said the England and Wales Cricket Board had opted to fund its disability and women's programmes itself. Rugby union has suffered a cut of £8.8m to £20m over four years, which largely represents a decrease in funding for capital projects. The £493.4m represents around half of Sport England's total investment over the next four years, with the rest going into facilities, coaching and themed rounds of investment.

The Sport England announcement was the first of two crucial funding decisions that will set the tone for British sport over the next four-year Olympic cycle. On Tuesday UK Sport will reveal how it plans to invest £500m over four years in elite sport in the hope of maintaining the momentum from London to Rio 2016.

Those that delivered in London, including cycling and rowing, are likely to see their investment protected with those team sports that fielded players at the London Games because they were granted home-nation places most at risk under UK Sport's "no-compromise policy". Volleyball, handball, basketball, table tennis and others are likely to see their funding severely reduced.